âRead the Classicsâ They Said... But Why Are They All Western ?
âRead the classics,â they say â in classrooms, in reading challenges, in thinkpieces about anti-intellectualism. And yes, I agree: literacy matters. Context matters. Critical reading matters.
But have you ever actually looked up a list of âmust-read classicsâ? I did.
Just for fun, I googled âclassic literatureâ and clicked on the first five websites that popped up : Macmillan, Penguin, Pen & Poison, Goodreads, and The Greatest Books.
I am data girlie so I decided to track the nationalities of the authors mentioned in each of their lists. Itâs not a rigorous study (Iâm not a publishing house or a university archive), but hereâs the thing: the results didnât surprise me. At all.
From Penguin to Goodreads to indie blogs, these lists are almost entirely Western â mostly British, American, French. The literary canon is overwhelmingly shaped by imperial power. Even when Russian or German authors are thrown in, non-Western voices are basically absent.
The percentage of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, or Indigenous authors is close to zero. Not because they didnât write brilliant books, but because theyâre not what weâre taught to call âclassic.â
And thatâs a problem.
Because the idea of âclassicsâ isnât neutral. Itâs institutional. Itâs political. Itâs imperial.
What we call âthe literary canonâ is a product of Western dominance. Itâs shaped by who held power : economically, academically, and culturally.
It reflects which countries built publishing empires, which languages were globalized, which authors had the backing of universities, critics, prizes. We talk a lot about colonialism in economics or politics, but literature has its empires too.
The global canon is still mostly made in London, Paris, and New York.
Even the term âWorld Literatureâ often just means non-Western books chosen by Western gatekeepers, translated by Western presses, reviewed by Western critics.
There are literary classics in Urdu, Swahili, Tamil, Arabic, Korean.
But most of them are never translated, never taught, never included in what we call âa classic.â
Ismat Chughtai and Saadat Hasan Manto were writing at the same time as Virginia Woolf and Albert Camus âand yet who gets taught worldwide? Who gets quoted in essays and book clubs and high school syllabi?
Thatâs not just coincidence. Thatâs cultural imperialism.
So when we say weâre fighting anti-intellectualism by âreading the classicsâ , we need to ask: Whose intellectual legacy are we preserving? And whose are we still ignoring?
If we donât expand our idea of what âa classicâ can be, weâre just reinforcing a literary empire with a prettier cover.
So if youâre a fan of classics (and I say this with love) please take a moment to look at your shelf. Are your âclassicsâ only Western?
If yes, maybe itâs time to ask: Whose stories are being left out and why?












